The heart of a computer is a magnetic disk drive which typically includes a rotating magnetic disk, a slider that has read and write heads, a suspension arm above the rotating disk and an actuator arm that swings the suspension arm to place the read and/or write heads over selected circular tracks on the rotating disk. The suspension arm biases the slider into contact with the surface of the disk when the disk is not rotating but, when the disk rotates, air is swirled by the rotating disk adjacent an air bearing surface (ABS) of the slider causing the slider to ride on an air bearing a slight distance from the surface of the rotating disk. When the slider rides on the air bearing the write and read heads are employed for writing magnetic impressions to and reading magnetic signal fields from the rotating disk. The read and write heads are connected to processing circuitry that operates according to a computer program to implement the writing and reading functions.
There are two conventional methods for forming the main pole of a magnetic head. The first conventional method uses an ion milling process to form the main pole from a full film layer. This conventional method does allow for the formation of the wrap around shield, but it becomes difficult to maintain the integrity of the pole shape for narrow pole widths. The second conventional method includes forming a trench in the shape of the desired main pole into a non-magnetic material, which is then filled with plated magnetic material. The plated magnetic material is then planarized to form the main pole. This conventional method does not have the pole shape integrity problem mentioned above, but it cannot form the wrap around shield easily.
Therefore, a method of forming a main pole with a side shield or wrap around shield that does not have the problems associated with conventional formation methods such as bending of the main pole would be advantageous.